We introduce the moduli space of hybrid curves as the hybrid compactification of the moduli space of curves thereby refining the one obtained by Deligne and Mumford. As the main theorem of this paper we then show that the universal family of canonically measured hybrid curves over this moduli space varies continuously. On the way to achieve this, we present constructions and results which we hope could be of independent interest. In particular, we introduce higher rank variants of hybrid spaces which refine and combine both the ones considered by Berkovich, Boucksom and Jonsson, and metrized complexes of varieties studied by Baker and the first named author. Furthermore, we introduce canonical measures on hybrid curves which simultaneously generalize the Arakelov-Bergman measure on Riemann surfaces, Zhang measure on metric graphs, and Arakelov-Zhang measure on metrized curve complexes. This paper is part of our attempt to understand the precise link between the non-Archimedean Zhang measure and variations of Arakelov-Bergman measures in families of Riemann surfaces, answering a question which has been open since the pioneering work of Zhang on admissible pairing in the nineties.
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